Wish You Were Queer: Exploring the Potential of Queer Play Parties to Arouse Social Change

Abstract

This article explores how the practice of BDSM sex parties within the queer community can inspire social structure alternatives conducive to sustainability. Drawing from the notion that the dominant social order of neoliberal hetero-patriarchy undermines our ability to address sustainability challenges as a collective, I demonstrate how the same culture disproportionately alienates the queer community. Taking from the theory of subaltern counterpublics, I highlight how social structures created at BDSM queer sex parties challenge dominant cultures and create spaces of inclusivity and radical participation, specifically through communication. These are key criteria called for in commons management, relevant for sustainable futures.     

Low-literates’ support needs for societal participation learning: Empirical grounding of theory- and model-based design

Specialized learning support software can address the low societal participation of low-literate Dutch citizens. We use the situated Cognitive Engineering method to iteratively create a design specification for the envisioned system VESSEL: a Virtual Environment to Support the Societal participation Education of Low-literates. An initial high-level specification for this system is refined by incorporating the societal participation experiences of low-literate citizens into the design. In two series of user studies, the participant workshop and cultural probe methods were used with 23 low-literate participants. The Grounded Theory method was used to process the rich user data from these studies into the Societal Participation Experience of Low-Literates (SPELL) model. Using this experience model, the existing VESSEL specification was refined: requirements were empirically situated in the daily practice of low-literate societal participation, and new claims were written to explicate the learning effectiveness of the proposed VESSEL system. In conclusion, this study provides a comprehensive, theoretically and empirically grounded set of requirements and claims for the proposed VESSEL system, as well as the underlying SPELL model, which captures the societal participation experiences of low-literates citizens. The research methods used in this study are shown to be effective for requirements engineering with low-literate users.     

Political opportunity structures and the activism of first- and second-generation Muslims in two Italian cities

ABSTRACT

The present contribution describes Muslims’ opportunities for activism and political participation, as shaped institutionally and discursively, in Milan and Turin. It analyses the interplay between the national level and the local level, and assesses the implications that contrasting local arrangements have for Muslims’ activism, claims-making and, to a certain extent, even self-identifications – especially with reference to young, second-generation Muslims. In Milan Muslims are confronted with a very closed system of political opportunities, while in Turin there appears to be a much more open system, which aims at co-opting second-generation organisations in particular. The consequence is that while in Milan Muslims – especially second-generation ones – are resigned to being merely the recipients of integration policies, in Turin they can conceive themselves more as partners of the city’s institutions, by resorting to a strategy of ‘active citizenship’.     

Achievement motive and sport participation

Three studies investigated the relationship between the achievement motive and sport participation. It was expected that both the implicit and the explicit achievement motives are positively associated with how frequently people engage in sport activities. The implicit achievement motive was assessed with indirect motive measures; the explicit achievement motive was either inferred from participants’ personal goals or measured with self-reports. Two hundred five athletes participated including college students enrolled in leisure sport programs offered at their university (Study 1), amateur athletes registered in sports clubs (Study 2), and elite tennis athletes (Study 3). The implicit achievement motive consistently predicted sport participation in all three studies. In contrast, the explicit achievement motive was uncorrelated with sport participation. The interaction between the two motives did not yield an effect on sport participation. The results indicate that the implicit, unconscious need to achieve facilitates regular engagement in sport activities, but the explicit, conscious orientation toward achievement does not. The enrichment of sports environments with incentives for the implicit achievement motive may thus attract more people to participate in sport activities.     

From elementary school to midlife: Childhood personality predicts behavior during cognitive testing over four decades later

The current study uses a prospective, longitudinal design and lifespan perspective to understand how child personality relates to directly observed adult behavior during cognitive testing. Teacher assessments of child Big Five personality in elementary school were correlated with directly observed behaviors during a videotaped cognitive test four decades later. Past work suggested Openness and Conscientiousness may relate to task-relevant academic behaviors. Childhood Openness was associated with several behaviors, even after controlling for participant’s cognitive performance. Childhood Conscientiousness was also related to behavior, but not as expected. Other Big Five ratings were not reliably related to behavior. The study examined personality stability in a unique way and suggests a further examination of how Openness in children manifests in later behavior.     

Community as practice: social representations of community and their implications for health promotion

Health promotion researchers and practitioners have increasingly turned to community-based approaches. Although there has been much work around the diverse understandings of the term in areas such as community psychology and sociology, I am concerned with how such understandings relate directly to community health research and practice. From a discursive perspective ‘community’ is seen as a socially constructed representation that is used variously and pragmatically. However, from a wider view, community can be seen as a matter of embodied practice. This paper draws on social representations theory to examine the shifting constructions of ‘community’, the functional use of those understandings in social life, and the practices that suggest that it is important to attend to their use in particular contexts. Accordingly, the paper argues that meanings of community in the health promotion or public health context must be seen as representations used for specific purposes in particular situations. Furthermore, the broader notion of embodied practice in social life has implications for community participation in health promotion. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Quality of the home,daycare and neighborhood environment and the cognitive development of economically disadvantaged children in early childhood: A mediation analysis

The objective of this study was to investigate how socioeconomic factors and the quality of ecological environments affect motor and cognitive development of economically disadvantaged children. This is a cross-sectional, predictive and correlational study using structural equation modeling to analyze data on 147 economic disadvantage children of 24–36 months attending public daycare. The Bayley-III Scales, the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment Inventory, the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale-Revised Edition, a socioeconomic index and a specifically designed questionnaire on neighborhood quality were applied. The ecological environments did not affect motor development, but 25 % of variations in cognitive development were explained by socioeconomic differences and differences in the quality of the neighborhood, home and daycare. However, only the quality of the home and daycare had a direct impact, with the other factors affecting the outcome indirectly and to a lesser extent. In conclusion, this study investigated the association between the ecological contexts of economically disadvantaged children and their cognitive and motor development. The findings showed that the environmental context had effect on cognitive development. The home was the environment that exerted the most significant direct effect, followed by daycare and, indirectly and to a lesser extent, the neighborhood. Therefore, the coordination of public policies between health, education and social assistance sectors, aiming at the three ecological environments is important in order to promote the cognitive development of economically disadvantaged children.